Saturday, September 10, 2005

Weather Service Union Rips Santorum

PITTSBURGH - The National Weather Service Employees union yesterday said Sen. Rick Santorum should retract statements this week questioning whether the Weather Service had given sufficient warning of Hurricane Katrina's path and fury.

"There's nobody else in the country saying the Weather Service didn't do a stellar job," said Dan Sobien, a meteorologist in Tampa, Fla., and vice president of the union.

Union president Paul Greaves accused Santorum (R., Pa.) of trying to further his goal of limiting the Weather Service's role in favor of private companies such as Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather.

"We know Sen. Santorum is looking out for the interests of his constituents in Pennsylvania," said Greaves, a meteorologist in Albany, N.Y., "and one of those constituents is AccuWeather."

In an interview Thursday with WITF Public Radio in Harrisburg, Santorum said, in part, that "the Weather Service gave no warning, or not sufficient warning in my opinion, as to the effects when it came on land in Florida as a Category One hurricane."

"I'm not going to suggest when it comes to Katrina that there were any major errors," he went on to say. "I don't know. This is something that I think needs to be investigated."